Published September 2026. Written by the Threadfall team.
Session notes exist to answer one question fast, mid-scene, with the table waiting: who is this NPC again, and what do they want right now. A recap gets written once and read once, after the fact. Session notes get glanced at a dozen times in one session and half-rewritten by the end of it.
This is the GM's page: what you prep before the session and what you scribble during it. Some GMs call it a "DM notes" template or prep notes; same thing. If you're the player who keeps the table's notes, the during-the-session block below is the part written for you, and the campaign tracker template covers the running record between sessions.
Copy it as is, then cut whatever your table never uses; a template you trim is one you'll open again.
SESSION GOAL: [one sentence, what needs to happen tonight] IF THEY ROUTE AROUND IT: [what happens instead] CLOCK: [the one thing on an actual countdown this session, if any] NPCS IN PLAY - [Name], [role]. Wants: [what, right now]. Voice: [accent/tic/phrase]. If pushed: [2-3 pre-rolled numbers] LOCATIONS EXPECTED - [Name]. Feels like: [one detail]. Could go wrong: [one thing]. Free fact: [what you hand over if nobody digs] ===== DURING THE SESSION ===== OPEN THREADS (check off or update live) - [ ] MARGIN TALLY (live: names as spelled, promises word for word, who took what loot, clocks that moved) PARKED QUESTIONS (a player asked, answer next time) - SCRATCH ===== AFTER THE SESSION ===== XP or milestone: Loot handed out (and who has it): Follow-ups (promised to a player / prep before next time):
A good default: notes are prep aimed at the GM, a recap is a record aimed at the whole table, and most of the confusion about this template comes from mixing the two up.
These are not the same document. D&D session notes are what the GM writes and reads before and during a session: reminders about NPCs, prepped locations, the threads still open. A session recap is the write-up that goes out after the session, to the whole table, telling the story of what actually happened. One is prep, aimed at the GM. The other is a record, aimed at everyone who was there and anyone who missed it. If you're looking for the thing you send your players after the game, that is a session recap, not this page: what makes a good session recap.
A good default: if your notes take longer to write than the session they're prepping for, they've stopped helping.
Short. GMs who keep up with notes over a long campaign tend to write one page per session, in fragments rather than full sentences: a name, a want, a detail, a warning to themselves. The notes exist to get glanced at mid-session without breaking the table's attention, not to be read like a chapter afterward. Anything longer belongs in your campaign bible, not your session notes.
The other thing that keeps a page usable under pressure is separating what you decide once, calmly, before the table meets, from what you touch live, with a die in your hand. That's the structure behind the template below.
What tends to work: designing the page to be opened at the table, not just written before it.
| Before the session | During the session | After the session |
|---|---|---|
| Session goal line | Live plot-threads checklist | End-of-session checklist |
| The clock, if there is one | The margin tally | |
| NPCs in play | Space for improvised notes | |
| Locations expected |
Session goal line. One sentence: what does this session need to accomplish for the story to move? If nothing else goes right, this is the one thing you make happen anyway. Write a second line under it: what happens if the party routes around it entirely and goes somewhere you didn't plan for. That second line is the one that saves you when players do what players do.
The clock, if there is one. Every session has at most one thing on an actual countdown: a patrol due back, a poison running out, a rival with a head start. If this session has one, box it by itself, separate from the NPC and location lists below. Everything else in your notes can wait for you to notice it. This one needs you to notice it on time, and it gets lost fastest when it's buried in a bullet list with everything else.
NPCs in play. For every NPC you expect to show up: name, one line for what they want right now, one voice note (an accent, a verbal tic, a phrase they repeat). If they might end up in combat or a skill contest, jot two or three numbers next to their name now, not mid-scene. A pre-rolled result costs you nothing to write ahead of time; flipping through a sheet for one live costs you the room's attention.
Example: Ilsa Kread, harbormaster. Wants: the ledger back before her boss notices it's gone. Voice: clips her sentences short when nervous.
Locations expected. For every place you expect to use: name, one sensory detail (a smell, a sound, the light), one thing that can go wrong there. Add a fourth line while you're at it: one fact about the place you're willing to hand over for free once the party's been there a while, even if nobody digs for it. Prep dies quietly all the time, not because it was bad, but because nobody found the hook.
Live plot-threads checklist. A running list of the open threads, checked off or updated as they resolve or get more complicated. This is the one section from the table above you touch during play, not only before it.
The margin tally. One column down the side of the page, or a line under the checklist if you're not on paper, filled in live: a name you'll need to spell right later, a promise made to a player, a clock that moved. It's the raw material for your end-of-session wrap and whatever you write up afterward, caught as it happens instead of reconstructed from memory at eleven at night.
Space for improvised notes. Ruled blank space, on paper or as an empty section in your document. Whatever the table does that you didn't plan for goes here, in your own shorthand. Trying to formalize it during the session tends to just slow you down.
End-of-session checklist. Three lines: XP or milestone awarded, loot handed out, and follow-ups, meaning what you promised a player and what you need to prep before next time.
One formatting habit worth adopting on the page itself, whichever tool you use: mark anything that will definitely happen tonight in solid ink, and bracket or pencil in anything that's only a maybe. A glance mid-session then tells you what's essential versus optional without re-reading a word of it.
One more thing worth prepping: five one-line complications on index cards, unattached to any scene: the guard recognizes someone, the bridge is already out, the contact isn't who they said. When a scene stalls, flip one over instead of freezing.
What tends to work: writing the before-session sections with a clear head, days ahead, and leaving the during and after sections blank until the table fills them in.
Continuing the Thistlewrack Accord campaign from the session 14 recap on the recap template page. Notice what's filled in and what isn't: the before-session sections are written ahead of time, in fragments, and the during and after sections stay blank, because that's not this page's job yet, it's the table's.
SESSION GOAL: Party presses Ilsa for the rest of the ledger. IF THEY ROUTE AROUND IT: Bo turns up first wanting his favor; ledger waits a session. CLOCK: Bo's favor, due any session now. Longer it waits, more he asks. NPCS IN PLAY - Ilsa Kread, harbormaster. Wants: ledger back, boss can't know. Voice: clipped, nervous. If pushed: Deception +4, Insight +2, AC 12. - Bo Rennick, rival smuggler. Wants: collect Dez's debt, and have the Tallow Company see him win it. Voice: never asks straight, circles it. If pushed: Persuasion +5, Athletics +3. LOCATIONS EXPECTED - The Drowned Exchange, warehouse under the docks. Feels like: standing water, lamp oil. Could go wrong: tide comes in mid-search. Free fact: second sublevel, untouched since the flood. ===== DURING THE SESSION ===== OPEN THREADS - [ ] What else is in Ilsa's ledger - [ ] What favor Bo asks for - [ ] Spiral symbol (Corwin's mentor) carved in the warehouse stone MARGIN TALLY PARKED QUESTIONS - SCRATCH ===== AFTER THE SESSION ===== XP or milestone: Loot handed out (and who has it): Follow-ups:
Print this page and only this block comes out. Clear all checks to start fresh for a new session.
Any of the three works, the format matters less than actually opening it at the table.
Obsidian's advantage is linking: type an NPC's name once, [[Ilsa Kread]], and every later mention is one click from her permanent note, so her history accretes there instead of getting re-explained in every session's notes. Put session: 15, date: 2026-09-13, and npcs: [ilsa-kread, bo-rennick] in a short frontmatter block at the top of each note, and a single search answers "every session Ilsa's shown up in" without opening a file.
Google Docs is the easiest to share with a co-GM. Paper is the fastest at the table and never has a dead battery, but it doesn't search.
Threadfall does not replace prep notes. It doesn't help you plan an NPC's voice or a location's sensory detail before the session, and it isn't trying to. What it replaces is the part where you try to remember what actually happened after the fact. Record the session, and by morning the NPC you improvised on the spot, the one who wasn't in your notes because she didn't exist until you needed her, has a Codex entry describing who she is and what she wants. The thread you didn't write down because you were busy running the table shows up in the Fates tab, waiting for you to decide if it matters.
The tracking part of the job happens on its own once the session is recorded. The part that's genuinely creative prep, the NPC voice, the location detail, the thing that can go wrong, is still yours to write. If you'd rather write the summary yourself, you can paste it straight in instead of recording, and players can post their own log entries too. None of that touches the other half: hand-tracking your own Codex by typing it in yourself, no recording required, is free forever.
Short and fragmentary, closer to a name and a reminder than a paragraph. Long notes stop getting read mid-session, which is the only time they need to work.
Yes, this page is it. Copy the template above into Google Docs or Obsidian, or print it for paper.
Notes are prep, written by the GM before and during play. A recap is the write-up sent to the table afterward, telling the story of what happened.
Obsidian if you want your NPCs and locations to link to each other automatically. Google Docs if a co-GM or player also needs to see it. Either is fine, the format matters less than actually opening it at the table.
Only loosely. Prep is the work you do before the table. The moment you're using that work during play, it's your session notes. Same page, different job.
More: what makes a good session recap · the session recap template · the session zero checklist · record a session on Discord · all Threadfall guides